Title Tag vs Meta Description: What's the Difference?

A title tag is the clickable headline shown in search results, and search engines weigh the words used in it directly as part of how they determine relevance and ranking for a query - it's a genuine ranking factor, not just a label.

A meta description is the short summary shown beneath the title in search results, and it has no direct effect on rankings at all - search engines don't use it to decide where a page ranks, only as optional descriptive text they may or may not even display as written.

The two exist to do different jobs at different stages of the same moment. The title tag's job is largely about visibility - it's part of what determines whether a page shows up for a given search in the first place, and matching it closely to what a searcher is actually looking for helps a page rank for the right queries. The meta description's job is entirely about persuasion once that visibility already exists - it's the pitch that convinces someone to click this result instead of one of the others already showing on the same results page, summarizing what they'll actually find without needing to be identical to the title above it. Writing the same text for both is a missed opportunity specifically because of this split: the title has already done its job by getting the page to appear, and a meta description that just repeats it wastes the one chance to add the extra, distinct reason someone should click through.